CIRCLE UP a film by Julie Mallozzi Timecode Script TC SPEAKER TRANSCRIPT 00:00:15 Newscaster (Steve Sbraccia) Investigators tell us there was total chaos and confusion among the occupants when they arrived. Whoever forced their way into the apartment did so by kicking in the front door. 00:00:34 Clarissa Turner This is what I have of my son... that's where the hole enlarged in my baby's head from them shooting him. 00:00:46 Shana Turner In my enraged powerlessness I swore to myself that when I saw that girl again on the city streets we both claimed as our own I would dig my fingers into her eyes, cross her jaw with my fist and pierce her supple flesh. I spit fire to her cheek, wishing her to feel the agony that had enraptured me. 00:01:07 Janet Connors Revenge, justice, forgiveness and accountability and what do they all have to do with one another, if anything? 00:01:16 Luis Otero I don't know, I consider revenge my own justice 'cause like after I got stabbed, it's just like, I don't know, damn, I just lost two of my friends to these people. I just don't want to know I went down for being peaceful. 00:01:29 Ismael Fortunato Like it doesn't matter, I attack who I attack, you know? And like, uhhh, and like, I feel bad sometimes for stuff like that, that I think of doing, stuff that I might do in the future, but it's just like I can't, I can't lose another friend. I can't. 00:02:25 Janet Connors My name is Janet Connors, I am the mother of three children. I've lived in Dorchester all my life. I umm...I lost my then 19 year old son to..to homicide. Umm, when he was killed in his apartment on Columbia Rd. So, umm...I had to make some meaning out of it. If you believe that everything happens for a purpose, it's really hard as a mother to think what could possibly have been the purpose, umm, for my son to have been murdered. 00:03:09 Shana Turner Oh, sorry ma. 00:03:12 Janet Connors S'all right. 00:03:24 Janet Connors Wow! 1 CIRCLE UP a film by Julie Mallozzi Timecode Script TC SPEAKER TRANSCRIPT 00:03:30 Shana Turner This one is cute because, uhh, it's "The Neighborhood." "My neighborhood is the best neighborhood. I belong here. Some of us have known each other since we were babies. We played together while our mothers had tea or sat together outside on the front steps. I'm glad I came back to live at my mother's house 'cause of the neighborhood. It's not about choosing mom or dad, I love them both. I'm older now. I need to make my own decisions, start taking care of myself in some ways. It's about me and the neighborhood and the way it feeds me. It's about my friends. It's about growing up and growing on." 00:04:18 Janet Connors Joel as a little child, he was kind of timid. And umm, I can remember him having little floaties on his arms, and a little tube around his waist, and still he's holding onto one end of a scarf and I'm holding onto the other, and then suddenly, he was eleven years old and jumping off some ten foot tower into a lake. Umm... 00:05:41 Shana Connors So, my little brother Joel, I call him my little brother but really he was huge. He was, like, 6-- 6 foot 5, had size 13 sneaker. He was a really sweet personality. You know, he was very mellow, very calm. Because of his size, oftentimes people made assumptions about his personality. When you're a big boy, uh.. you know, a young man, people try to challenge you. As we got older and you see things happening around you, you see people getting, you know, jumped and stabbed and arrested and it was just too dangerous. You know, like I just was afraid for his safety. 00:05:27 Janet Connors Shana and Joel both moved out in the fall of 2000. I thought, “Oh, good. He’s movin’ outta the neighborhood. He’s stretchin’...and as it turns out, you know, uhm.. Joel was selling weed and one of his friends was selling other things, um... OxyContins...um... so it wasn’t the kind of move that I had thought it was really. My last words to him were right in this doorway over here. I told him that I loved him. And he said, “I love you too,” and then he left. 00:06:09 Shana Connors It was 6:00 something p.m. I was just getting off of work and I was on the train. When I tell you I had a out- of-body experience on that train that I've never had before or since. It felt so surreal. It left me feeling like I was gonna learn something just really tragic. 2 CIRCLE UP a film by Julie Mallozzi Timecode Script TC SPEAKER TRANSCRIPT 00:06:28 Janet Connors There was this loud, loud, loud, loud, loud knock on the door and, I...um...came out and it was my son David. And his friend Timmy. And they...they told me that Joel had been stabbed. And I asked if he was all right, and David said, "No, he's dead." His friends stayed with him...um...they called 911. They were receivin’ instructions. They actually were stuffing towels in his wound. Um.. but because he was stabbed in his heart it was just – he bled out. 00:07:47 Janet Connors All of Joel’s friends were out here. There were kids on my front porch and my backyard, sitting everywhere. They were curled up in fetal position. They were all sobbing. 00:08:03 Shana Turner And we were talking about who did it. And we knew which group of young people it was. We didn't know which individual. But we knew this because they had some kind of beef with, you know, some of my brother's friends or whatever. So we we we just knew. Like a lot of times, you know, you’re treated as though if you don’t get revenge you’re a coward, or if you don’t get revenge, you are just allowing these people to just come in and just treat you like a ragdoll. That's a hard pressure to not internalize. 00:08:54 Jacklyn Berry I'm reading this poem. Um...yeah...I'm reading through this but I remember. I was sitting next to you after his funeral and I wrote that in like three minutes 'cause I was just so hurt. 00:09:11 Janet Connors "Now is the time for raised fists, freedom fights against the evils that begat this. These tears represent my sorrow. And this pain reaches deep like an arrow. In my heart's heart you shine. Peace to you mine and the other kind." 00:09:29 Martin Ward I mean I'm not gonna really deny anything, like we weren't fucking perfect angels. Of course when it happened people wanted to take revenge. That's only natural and uh...the way that we were, I don't know, I speak for myself, like I was angry, real angry. I would have probably wished the worst on them and wanna do harm. And um...you know it sucks. 3 CIRCLE UP a film by Julie Mallozzi Timecode Script TC SPEAKER TRANSCRIPT 00:10:10 Shana Turner Like the people – like, the lawyers and whatnot were saying things about my brother that made it seem like he deserved to die. He didn't matter. They actually said, "Oh well you know he was selling drugs and you know when you live that life you have to live with what happens." And it was like crazy, what are you talking about? You're just feeding the jury these... these images so that they can erase you know, what just happened. So it was never a matter of innocence, it was never a matter of were they even present. That was always established. But the truth was that the jury had been fed all these images to just devalue my brother's life and to just call it as though you live by the sword, you die by the sword. 00:11:09 Janet Connors I can still hear myself screaming in the hallways of the courthouse. "He got away with murder! He got away with murder!" I hear this door slam. But it was like this door silenced me. "Shut up! You're not supposed to cry now. You're not supposed to scream. The court has decided." So I knew that I had to make my own justice. 00:11:46 Female student in hoodie And he actually died…[unintelligible]… somebody came in and shot him... 00:11:52 Janet Connors Oh wow...and he was a relative of yours or... 00:11:54 Female student in hoodie Yeah, he's my first cousin. 00:11:56 Janet Connors Thank you 00:11:57 Female student in hoodie Thank you 00:11:59 Male student I really like how you took on the hate. 00:12:08 Female student (Unintelligible) 00:12:10 Janet Connors Thank you 00:12:12 Janet Connors I bet you do.